Fuck You, Amazing Crystal Garden.

I got this thing the other day that I thought my kids would LOVE. It is called “The Amazing Crystal Garden”. And it is anything but amazing.

I’m always suspicious of things that claim to be amazing, as they are setting the bar really high. I wouldn’t say I am particularly picky either, but if something says it is amazing I am kind of expecting it to be god damn amazing. Is that a fair comment?

The instructions are easy, put the little rocks in a bowl and cover them with vinegar. Leave them in a warm room for a couple of days and you will be AMAZED by a dazzling display of crystals. Well, we are a week into this failed experiment and pretty much nothing has happened. The kids rush to the dishes each day to see if they have grown and I have to watch their little faces fall with disappointment.

How do I handle this? I feel like a liar and a fraud. I read the packet and explained to them they were going to get an AMAZING CRYSTAL GARDEN and all we have is a small cluster that looks like herpes. I have basically grown herpes for my children.

Not really being a fan of parenting books (which is probably why I am such a terrible mother), I prefer the old school way of fumbling through and asking friends for advice when I don’t know what to do. Or I google it. Google knows everything, right?

So I turned to google to help me with this most unpleasant experience.

Yeah, no. Not really helping. But someone needs a cucumber cleanse…..

My main concern is the children. I’m worried about the psychological damage caused by realising their crystals are not coming. I don’t want to be that parent that my child ugly cries to a therapist about when they are 40. So I do what every loving parent would do and I try to delve even deeper into the interwebs.

But I am left confused. And a tiny bit stupid.

Since I am no longer in North Shore Mums, I want to make sure their health is not in danger. Kids will be kids! So I’m asking for a friend….

Like I said. Asking for a friend…..

I’m starting to get frustrated at this point. The answers I need are simply not coming. So I try google images instead.

Still nothing. Although I really feel for Nat, who has herpes.

I begin to get a little angrier. Surely there must be something online to help me?

How is it possible that the world wide web can’t help me with this issue? There is literally NO support group for people who have experienced a failed crystal garden. You can find support groups for ANYTHING on the web.

But not this.

Yep, it seems I have found the one thing that is not able to be helped. Are there other people like me experiencing this? Has this happened to you? How did you deal with it?

I try google images one last time.

Nothing! Just amazing crystal gardens that look absolutely NOTHING like my pile of shit! Take a look at this.

Amazing, huh?

Well, Fuck You Amazingly Shit Crystal Garden (patent pending). You’ve really done a number on this household. Not only do I have to deal with the tears of my kids and wasted time spent waiting for these mystical crystals to arrive, I’ve now had to explain what herpes are to my four year old who heard me yelling at my computer.

No amount of sorry can fix this cluster fuck. But at least the cluster fuck is actually a cluster. Unlike your non-existent cluster of crystals that NEVER FUCKING APPEARED.

I’m taking this to the top. See you on A Current Affair soon.

THE END

Have you ever bought something that claimed to be amazing but was anything but? Tell me about it.

I’ll meet your amazing crystal garden and raise the bid to two packets of sea dragons. Not content with the first disaster that yielded not a single live sea dragon I fool-hearedly gave away more dosh to buy a second pack of eggs which again yielded not a single live dragon and one traumatised seven year old.

We have actually had success twice with crystal garden thingys. Neither of them looked like yours though. One grew a sizeable blue crystal in a plastic jar and the other grew a hideously gaudy mountain and tree landscape on a plastic plate. Not funny I know, but just so you know some of them do work. I preferred the one in the jar, the kids of course, gaudy. They were both gifts. The crystals, not the kids.

I wouldn’t say “a little bit stupid” I would say stupid is as stupid does, a big stupid. I just typed in “Why doesn’t my crystal garden grow?” And I got 5,420,000 answers in 0.53 secs, and heaps of answers to my question.
I saw these Crystal Garden & Sea Horses on the backs of comic books 50 yrs ago, not forgetting, see your friends through our “amazing” X-Ray glasses, look through their clothes and “see” their bodies close up.
As Barnum use to say, There’s one born every minute.

I hope you explained what herpes simplex virus to your son well thought out, instead of the freaking hysteria of herpes complex you have, it’s a virus not a disease, there’s no cure but there are ways of controlling it, I have it, it’s not life threatening, it won’t kill you, in fact over 40% of the Australian population has it.

Anyone ever had chicken pox, same family, shingles, same family, of course you would know because your so knowledgeable, that there are two types, Herpes Simplex 1 and Herpes Simplex 2.
Herpes Simplex 1 is caught ( actually it’s in everybody’s bodies) when you have chicken pox, (the herpes simplex lives in/on the spinal cord and through certain conditions it will move around to the genital area) Herpes Simplex 2 is caught through sexual intercourse, partner to partner, but you don’t need me to tell you that, oh wait, yes you do because your a bit stupid.